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Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Vatican
City, 29 October 2013 (VIS) – Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, prefect of
the Congregation for the Oriental Churches, announced in his address
at the opening of the new academic year of the Pontifical Oriental
Institute that a summit meeting of the patriarchs and major
archbishops of the oriental Churches of Syria, Iraq and the Middle
East will be held in the Vatican, in the presence of the Holy Father,
on 21 November.

The
meeting, which will take place from 19 to 22 November, will take as
its general theme the debate “The Eastern Catholic Churches fifty
years after Vatican Council II”.

The
cardinal declared that “Pope Francis has agreed to repeat the
meeting which took place for the first time in 2009”, when the
heads of the Eastern Churches met with Benedict XVI in “a fruitful
morning of reflection”, and will now have the opportunity “to
speak before the Pope on the situation of eastern Christians”.

-
appointed Bishop Leonard Paul Blair of Toledo in America, U.S.A., as
archbishop of Hartford (area 5,926, population 1,996,000, Catholics
718,000, priests 393, permanent deacons 289, religious 818), U.S.A.
Bishop Blair was born in Detroit, U.S.A. in 1949, was ordained to the
priesthood in 1976, and received episcopal ordination in 1999. He
succeeds Archbishop Henry Joseph Mansell, whose resignation from the
pastoral care of the same archdiocese upon having reached the age
limit was accepted by the Holy Father.

Archbishop
'Leke Abegunrin was born in Iwere-lle, Nigeria in 1949, was ordained
to the priesthood in 1979, and received episcopal ordination in 1995.
He succeeds Archbishop Felix Alaba Adeosin Job, whose resignation
from the pastoral care of the same archdiocese upon having reached
the age limit was accepted by the Holy Father.

-
appointed Rev. Kurt R. Burnette as bishop of the eparchal See of
Passaic of the Ruthenians (catholics 14,729, priests 80, permanent
deacons 26, religious 27), U.S.A. Bishop-elect Burnette was born in
Fakenham, England in 1955 and was ordained a priest in 1988. He is
currently rector of the Sts. Cyril and Methodius Seminary,
Pittsburgh.

-
appointed Fr. Aureo Patricio Bonilla Bonilla, O.F.M., as apostolic
vicar of Galapagos, (area 8.010, population 25,124, Catholics 18,850,
priests 11, religious 13), Ecuador. The bishop-elect was born in
Riobamba, Ecuador in 1968 and was ordained a priest in 1996. He
holds a doctorate in canon law from the Antonianum Pontifical
Athenaeum University of Rome, and has served in a number of roles,
including president of the institutes and centres of Franciscan
theological study of Latin America; secretary for formation of the
Bolivarian Franciscan Conference; defender of the bond of the
National Court of Appeal of the C.E.E.; provincial vicar, president
of the judicial commission of the Franciscan order, deacon of the
faculty of philosophy and theology and professor of canon law; judge
at the National Court of Appeal and consultor for consecrated life of
the Episcopal Commission of Ministers and Consecrated Life of the
C.E.E.; and member of the tribunal of the archdiocese of Quito. He is
currently provincial vicar of the Order of Friars Minor in Ecuador.
He succeeds Bishop Manuel Antonio Valarezo Luzariaga, O.F.M., whose
resignation from the pastoral care of the same diocese upon reaching
the age limit was accepted by the Holy Father.